Part 3

In regard to the significance of the change of administration in the world of gods, Saxo has preserved a tradition which is of no small interest. The circumstance that Odin and his sons had to surrender the reign of the world did not imply that mankind should abandon their faith in the old gods and accept a new religion. Hitherto the Asas and Vans had been worshipped in common. Now, when Odin was deposed, his name, honoured by the nations, was not to be obliterated. The name was given to Ull, and, as if he really were Odin, he was to receive the sacrifices and prayers that hitherto had been addressed to the banished one (Hist., 130). The ancient faith was to be maintained, and the shift involved nothing but the person; there was no change of religion. But in connection with this information, we also learn, from another statement in Saxo, that the myth concerning the war between Asas and Vans was connected with traditions concerning a conflict between various views among the believers in the Teutonic religion concerning offerings and prayers. The one view was more ritual, and demanded more attention paid to sacrifices. This view seems to have gotten the upper hand after the banishment of Odin. It was claimed that sacrifices and hymns addressed at the same time to several or all of the gods, did not have the efficacy of pacifying and reconciling angry deities, but that to each one of the gods should be given a separate sacrificial service (Saxo, Hist., 43). The result of this was, of course, an increase of sacrifices and a more highly-developed ritual, which from its very nature might have produced among the Teutons the same hierarchy as resulted from an excess of sacrifices among their Aryan-Asiatic kinsmen. The correctness of Saxo's statement is fully confirmed by strophe 145 in Hávamál, which advocates the opposite and incomparably more moderate view in regard to sacrifices. This view came, according to the strophe, from Odin's own lips. He is made to proclaim it to the people "after his return to his ancient power".

Betra er óbeðið
en sé ofblótið,
ey sér til gildis gjöf;
betra er ósent
en sé ofsóið.
Svo Þundur um reist
fyr þjóða rök,
þar hann upp um reis,
er hann aftur um kom.

The expression, þar hann upp um reis, er hann aftur um kom, refers to the fact that Odin had for some time been deposed from the administration of the world, but had returned, and that he then proclaimed to the people the view in regard to the real value of prayers and sacrifices which is laid down in the strophe. Hence it follows that before Odin returned to his throne another more exacting doctrine in regard to sacrifices had, according to the myth, secured prevalence. This is precisely what Saxo tells us. It is difficult to repress the question whether an historical reminiscence is not concealed in these statements. May it not be the record of conflicting views within the Teutonic religion - views represented in the myth by the Vana-gods on the one side and the Asas on the other? The Vana views, I take it, represented tendencies which, had they been victorious, would have resulted in hierarchy, while the Asa doctrine represented the tendencies of the believers in the time-honoured Aryan custom of those who maintained the priestly authority of the father of the family, and who defended the efficacy of the simple hymns and sacrifices which from time out of mind had been addressed to several or all of the gods in common. That the question really has existed among the Teutonic peoples, at least as a subject for reflection, spontaneously suggests itself in the myth alluded to above. This myth has discussed the question, and decided it in precisely the same manner as history has decided it among the Teutonic races, among whom priestcraft and ritualism have held a far less important position than among their western kinsmen, the Celts, and their eastern kinsmen, the Iranians and Hindoos. That prayers on account of their length, or sacrifices on account of their abundance, should give evidence of greater piety and fear of God, and should be able to secure a more ready hearing, is a doctrine which Odin himself rejects in the strophe above cited. He understands human nature, and knows that when a man brings abundant sacrifices he has the selfish purpose in view of prevailing on the gods to give a more abundant reward - a purpose prompted by selfishness, not by piety.